There is a public menace on the streets of Perth, Australia: two motorized picnic tables. Police are looking for the drivers of the, erm, vehicles, which were seen cruising down the West Coast Highway, complete with passenger casually sitting on the tables having a drink. It looks like the two picnic tables are being driven by a centrally mounted lawnmower motor and are controlled from one of the seats. The police are interested because it is illegal to drive something on the public road in Australia that isn’t properly licensed. I’ll bet that his insurance probably doesn’t cover taking it out for a spin on the highway, either. The accompanying TV news report does not identify the person responsible, but they claim have spoken to the builder, who says that the two tables can manage up to 50 miles per hour. They claim that he is even working on an upgraded model that includes a built-in barbecue, which could bring a whole new meaning to the term drive-thru.
There are dozens of different 3D printable cases out there for the Raspberry Pi, but the BeagleBone Black, as useful as it is, doesn’t have as many options. The folks at 3D hubs thought they could solve this with a portable electronics lab for the BBB. It opens like a book, fits a half-size breadboard inside, and looks very cool.
There’s a box somewhere in your attic, basement, or garage filled with IDE cables. Wouldn’t they be useful for projects? Yep, only not all the wires work; some are grounds tied together, some are not wired straight through, and some are missing. [esot.eric] has the definitive guide for 80-wire IDE cables.
Like case mods? Here’s a golden apple, made out of walnut. Yes, there are better woods he could have used. It’s a wooden replica of a Mac 128 with a Mac Mini and LCD stuffed inside. Want a video? Here you go.
If you have a 3D printer, you’re probably familiar with PEEK. It’s the plastic used as a thermal break in non-all-metal hotends. Now it’s a filament. An extraordinarily expensive filament at €900 per kilogram. Printing temperature is 370°C, so you’ll need an all-metal hotend.
It’s the Kickstarter that just keeps going and going and going. That’s not a bad thing, though: there really isn’t much of a market for new Amiga 1200 cases. We’ve featured this project before, but the last time was unsuccessful. Now, with seven days left and just over $14k to go, it might make it this time.
Showing any sort of ‘hacking’ on either the big screen or the small often ends in complete, abject failure. You only need to look at Hackers with its rollerblading PowerBooks, Independance Day where the aliens are also inexplicably using PowerBooks, or even the likes of Lawnmower Man with a VR sex scene we keep waiting for Oculus to introduce. By design, Mr Robot, a series that ended its first season on USA a month ago, bucks this trend. It does depressed, hoodie-wearing, opioid-dependant hackers right, while still managing to incorporate some interesting tidbits from the world of people who call themselves hackers.
Desktop Environments
In episode 0 of Mr Robot, we’re introduced to our hiro protagonist [Elliot], played by [Rami Malek], a tech at the security firm AllSafe. We are also introduced to the show’s Macbeth, [Tyrell Wellick], played by Martin Wallström]. When these characters are introduced to each other, [Tyrell] notices [Elliot] is using the Gnome desktop on his work computer while [Tyrell] says he’s, “actually on KDE myself. I know [Gnome] is supposed to be better, but you know what they say, old habits, they die hard.”
[Elliot], running Kali with GnomeWhile this short exchange would appear to most as two techies talking shop, this is a scene with a surprisingly deep interpretation. Back in the 90s, when I didn’t care if kids stayed off my lawn or not, there was a great desktop environment war in the land of Linux. KDE was not free, it was claimed by the knights of GNU, and this resulted in the creation of the Gnome.
Subtle, yes, but in one short interaction between [Elliot] and [Tyrell], we see exactly where each is coming from. [Elliot] stands for freedom of software and of mind, [Tyrell] is simply toeing the company line. It’s been fifteen years since message boards have blown up over the Free Software Foundation’s concerns over KDE, but the sentiment is there.
Biohacking
There’s far more to a hacker ethos than having preferred Linux desktop environments. Hacking is everywhere, and this also includes biohacking, In the case of one Mr Robot character, this means genetic engineering.
In one episode of Mr Robot, the character Romero temporarily gives up his power in front of a keyboard and turns his mind to genetics. He “…figured out how to insert THC’s genetic information code into yeast cells.” Purely from a legal standpoint, this is an interesting situation; weed is illegal, yeast is not, and the possibilities for production are enormous. Yeast only requires simple sugars to divide and grow in a test tube, marijuana actually requires a lot of resources and an experienced staff to produce a good crop.
The promise of simply genetically modifying yeast to produce THC is intriguing; a successful yeast-based grow room could outproduce any plant-based operation, with the only input being sugar. Alas, the reality of the situation isn’t quite that simple. Researchers at Hyasynth Bio have only engineered yeast to turn certain chemical precursors into THC. Making THC from yeast isn’t yet as simple as home brewing an IPA, but it’s getting close, and a great example of how Mr Robot is tapping into hacking, both new and old.
Why Aren’t We Arguing More About This?
The more we ruminate on this show, the more there is to enjoy about it. It’s the subtle background that’s the most fun; the ceiling of the chapel as it were. We’re thinking of turning out a series of posts that works through all the little delights that you might have missed. For those who watched and love the series, what do you think? Perhaps there are other shows worthy of this hacker drill-down, but we haven’t found them yet.
Clearing brush is no fun. Sure, swinging a machete on a hot, humid day sounds great, but when you’re sitting in an oatmeal bath the next day because you didn’t see the poison ivy, you’ll be looking for a better way. [RoboMonkey] did just that with a field-expedient brush trimmer that’s sure to help with his chores.
This is a hack in the true Junkyard Wars sense of the word. A cast-off electric push mower deck caught [RoboMonkey]’s eye, and a few spare brackets and bolts later his electric hedge trimmer was attached across the front of the mower. With a long extension cord trailing behind, he was able to complete in 10 minutes what would normally take him an hour to accomplish, without spending a dime on either a specialized brush cutter or a landscaping service. The video after the break reveals that it may not be the most powerful tool in the shed, and it won’t likely stand up to daily use, but for this twice a year chore, it’s more than sufficient. And since the hedge trimmer wasn’t modified, it’s still available for its original purpose. Reduce, reuse, recycle – and repurpose.
While we haven’t seen many brush cutters before, we seen plenty of mower mods. From LiPo electrics to a gas-powered RC unit, the common push-mower seems to be a great platform for all kinds of hacking.
Every year teams from around the world come together for the Ecomarathon, an event (ironically put on by Shell) that tasks teams from high schools and universities with creating energy-efficient electric, gas, and hybrid vehicles. This year’s competition was held in Detroit, so I headed over to check it out.
The event has two categories that vehicles compete in: prototype vehicles that compete for the highest fuel efficiency and “urban concept” vehicles that are more focused on normal driving environments and look slightly closer to street-legal vehicles. Cars in both categories can be fully electric or powered by gas, diesel, compressed natural gas, or other alternative fuels. Vehicles drive around a 0.9 mile track that weaves through downtown Detroit and the efficiency of each vehicle is measured as they complete a fixed number of laps around the track.
Now that Spring is upon us, it’s time to get out the kayaks, canoes and row boats. As fun as paddling around a lake may be, after a long winter of sitting inside our arms are not up to that task. Well, [comsa42] has a solution to that problem. He’s made a quick-attaching trolling motor setup for his canoe and documented the process along the way.
[comsa42] started with a run of the mill canoe. Although he wanted a trolling motor option, he didn’t want to permanently modify the canoe. He started by making a wooden beam that spans the width of the canoe and overhangs on one side. The beam was notched out to securely fit over the lip of the canoe and a couple bolts and washers were used to clamp the beam to the canoe. This beam is just a few inches behind the rear seat so that the motor is at a comfortable position for the person steering.
The electric trolling motor is attached to this beam. To power the trolling motor, [comsa42] wired up two 12v deep cycle marine batteries in parallel. He installed them in a recycled wooden case to protect the batteries from the elements or occasional splash.
There are just somethings you don’t see often when it comes to motorcycles, 2 wheel drive and tank tracks. Well, [jeep2003] has combined both those oddities into one project he calls the Track-Powered 2×2 MiniBike.
As his descriptive project name suggests, this minibike has tracks instead of wheels. The track assemblies originally came off a snow blower. As if just having tracks wasn’t difficult enough, both sets are powered. The back has a straight forward chain and sprocket setup while the front ads in a clever jack-shaft and universal joint contraption which is shown in the video after the break around the 3:08 mark.
[jeep2003] doesn’t say where the tubing for his custom made frame came from, but from the photos available it appears they were once old bicycle frames. The powerplant is a 6.75hp vertical shaft Briggs & Stratton engine. The output shaft connects to a Peerless 5 speed transmission that also has reverse. This transmission usually outputs to two rear drive wheels of a riding lawnmower. [jeep2003] dedicates each axle output from the transmission to power one of the two track systems.
Although this minibike won’t be breaking any land speed records anytime soon, we here at HaD still think it’s a pretty rad build.
![[Elliot], running Kali with Gnome](https://hackaday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/elliot-hacks.jpg?w=400)
The event has two categories that vehicles compete in: prototype vehicles that compete for the highest fuel efficiency and “urban concept” vehicles that are more focused on normal driving environments and look slightly closer to street-legal vehicles. Cars in both categories can be fully electric or powered by gas, diesel, compressed natural gas, or other alternative fuels. Vehicles drive around a 0.9 mile track that weaves through downtown Detroit and the efficiency of each vehicle is measured as they complete a fixed number of laps around the track.
